Larry Summers the magician: another $167 BILLION of taxpayer money disappears….
April 7, 2009
by Amy Siskind
Taxpayer money….
While the country was busy being distracted by conversations about our President’s trip abroad and Wall Street bonuses, another $167 billion of taxpayer money quietly slipped out the door.
I must say that this has been one of the greatest orchestrated Houdini Acts with taxpayer monies that I have ever seen. Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner have managed to have the country transfixed on $165 million of AIG bonuses, while – POOF – $30 billion of taxpayers funds given to AIG goes out the door to domestic AND foreign banks (yes, foreign banks).
The latest Houdini Act by Summers and Geithner – POOF – another $167 billion of taxpayer monies quietly disappeared. It’s okay that you missed it; so did everybody else. The Congressional Budget Office leaked it out over the weekend when nobody was paying attention. The Wall Street Journal reported:
The Congressional Budget Office has quietly altered its estimate of the ultimate cost to taxpayers of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, now figuring the initiative will be much more expensive in the long run than it previously figured.
In January, the CBO pegged the ultimate cost to taxpayers of the $700 billion TARP at $189 billion. When the agency issued revised numbers in late March, it revised that to $356 billion, a change that drew little attention.
Larry Summers was certainly too busy to notice. After all, when you earn $8 million dollars in bonuses for 2008, one needs a certain amount of personal time to figure out how to spend it all!
And how about this, women of this country? On March 22nd, we reported:
But beneath the loud chants of “off with their heads”, there is a less publicized story unfolding. The Wall Street folks aren’t traveling so much anymore so hotels around the country are having trouble filling rooms, so employees are being let go. Homes aren’t selling so real estate agents are losing their jobs. People are shopping less and spending less money so folks in the malls are laying off jobs. Slowly but surely, an economic crisis that started off by disproportionately impacting men in the construction and transportation, is now creeping into important fields dominated by women.
To say nothing about the teaching jobs that are now being cut as part of budget plans for next year (75% of positions in the field of education are held by women).
All this taxpayer money down the drain could have been spent on programs to train women and help them leave the “pink collar ghetto.” Or reinvested in fields that employ women – or small businesses owned by women. Or, as we have been promised, how about helping women with healthcare?
Poverty is predominantly a women’s problem. For 2007, 14% of women lived in poverty (11% of men). We need programs to help women through these tough economic times. I say we start by requiring Larry Summers to give the $8 million he received from his pals on Wall Street to charities that help women. After all, when you lose $167 billion for American, $8 million is a tiny down payment.
Why not a discussion of the brilliant lady Brooksley Born, Chairperson of the 1998 Commodity Futures Trading Commission, who almost single handedly stopped this bank crisis fron happening, before being stopped by GOP Senator Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan http://www.federalreserve.gov/.....980724.htm “the Board supports a standstill of attempts by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to impose new regulations on OTC derivatives as a minimalist approach to our longstanding concerns about CFTC assertions of authority in this area.” and their demonstration of Congressional Power to Rubin and Summers, making Rubin and Summers run from their initial attempt to regulate derivatives (Rubin then trying to get Congress to agree to more disclise and higher capital requirements in lieu of having real regulation – and being again stopped by Congress0.
Geitner and Summers have stopped a repeat of the 1929 depression – and that is a good thing.
Better for the New Agenda to celebrate the woman that almost saved us (heck the 2004 FBI attempt to stop the banking crisis with their very public warning of massive derivative and mortgage fraud, requesting an additional 500 agents for “white collar crime, again shot down by a GOP Congress, could also be an interesting article). The dump on Summers is better published on Fox Cable News.
papau:
you are new to our site but you should check out these stories:
http://thenewagenda.net/2009/0.....r-honored/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/b.....k-in-1950/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/b.....en-scorned
Wow! I read the articles and comments to the links you posted, Amy, and I’m stunned by the many of the posters comments. Man, they love to dish it out (pun intended).
I’m new to The New Agenda and am thrilled to learn that their are women who are taking a lead in filling the huge whole long ignored by NOW, Emily’s List, NARAL and more. I stopped giving to these organizations long ago because of their narrow mission statements and outreach. I’m not a lifelong feminist to only fight for single issues, although important, but by no means the only issues of importance women face everyday. And I am most grateful that the women of The New Agenda have the foresight to make this movement nonpartisan. Damn that’s refreshing!!!
That said, I believe it is time to demand full Congressional hearings into the economic collapse. After reading the transcript from Bill Moyer’s interview with Mr. Black as well as countless other articles and posts on this crisis it is time for the populace to demand hearings and accountability. It is curious that the one’s at the table demanding taxpayer’s bailout the banks and insurance giants i.e., AIG pre Obama are the same one’s who are hiding and covering up the misdeeds post Obama. Something is terribly wrong with this picture.
Recently there were several posts in the blogosphere detailing how Summers mismanged Harvard’s Investment arm and that this fund reported losses in the billions during the third quarter and even larger losses are expected in the fourth quarter.
Add to that the whole tale about Ms. Mack and his being extremely dismissive of her and Summers is looking more like a self-serving huckster. Didn’t this man receive $8M in bonuses last year alone? And I believe I read somewhere that he received hundreds of thousands of dollars for a speaking engagement at AIG.
Something is terribly wrong with the course this economic bailout is on and after losing thousands in retirement funds alone it’s high time “We the People” demand accountability and stop the farce of pretense by this administration.
oops, meant “hole” not “whole” – my apologies
Welcome Helen!
The biggest speaking fee was from Goldman Sachs – $135,000 – but there were numerous other Wall Street firms that received TARP funds and paid Summers to speak. Several are listed in this NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04.....8;emc=eta1
Did anyone catch Bill Moyers recent interview of William Black, the former Bank investigator of The Keating Five-(four of whom were democrats) scandal? Willam Black who was a real problem for Keating was a vocal supporter of Barak Obama. That was until lately. It was so wonderful to watch Bill Moyers reaction as Black declared Obama’s financial plans to be ” substantively bad, lack integrity and violate the rule of law.” Do ya think? Well Mr. Black, better late than never, I suppose, but I will have a hard time forgiving all you former Obama supporters. But thanks for giving props to former female Banking regulator Brooksly Born, who’s regulations on banking were destroyed and banned by Larry the Pig Summers, Paul Rublin and Phil Gram as they collectively chanted -NO You can’t!
A little graphic:
http://www.facebook.com/photo......=520222775
I wish you all could listen to this. But I’m not sure it’s available in the States. From the program line-up to The Sunday Edition a news analysis program on CBC Radio: “In hour three, Henry Mintzburg, one of the world’s leading theorists on management says the economic meltdown was caused not by crooks but by well-educated incompetents who can’t run anything.”.
http://www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/index.html
OT or to another thread: Anna Belle the show also celebrates the 70th anniversary of Marian Anderson’s Lincoln memorial concert.
There’s a great letter to the editor in this week’s Boston Sunday Globe titled, “Whistle-blower’s case calls Summers into question”
Quotes from the letter:
You can read and comment on the letter here: http://www.boston.com/bostongl....._question/
Responding to detailed questions from Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the company now says it doled out more than $454 million in bonuses to its employees for work performed in 2008, a marked increase from the $120 million it claimed in March to have paid out.
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